


you choose the bonds you break (and the ones you recreate)

by mayathewriter



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Light Angst, Raydia Week Day 2 - Mermaids, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmate-Identifying Timers, also the summary makes it sound way angstier than it actually is i promise, at best and, at worst, but i love it sm, its like, this fic has owned my ass since monday this killed me, this was started sunday not monday i forgot what days are, yes its both i promise i know what im doing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-06 20:38:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16394675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayathewriter/pseuds/mayathewriter
Summary: Two screams of pain, mirrored on land and in water.A soulbond was broken.





	you choose the bonds you break (and the ones you recreate)

**Author's Note:**

> whoooooo boy this fic was Exhausting. but. i hope its worth it bc i put way more effort into this than the wordcount warrants but u kno what i had fun
> 
> anyways this is actually my first soulmate au! tell me how i did
> 
> also lmk about characterization? i feel like i kind of botched it for plot so. hm.

Claudia had always been drawn to the ocean. There’s no rhyme or reason to it, but a deep longing, tucked away behind her heart and tugging her forwards, towards the waves she spent her childhood splashing and playing in.

Soren joked that it was because of her soulmark, the white mark in the shape of a scale stark against skin tanned from a lifetime in the sun burning brighter the further she went out to the ocean. Soulmarks got brighter the closer you were to your soulmate, and once you touched them it would flare brightly, before settling at a solid, flat color- the color of your soulmate’s eyes. Occasionally, if you had more than one soulmate, your mark would be split, each half glowing separately.

It wasn’t unusual to have some sort of pull towards your soulmate. The problem with _Claudia’s_ soulmark was that it wasn’t as dim as you would expect it to be for someone living across the ocean. It was almost the opposite, actually; some nights it would glow bright enough to read by in an otherwise pitch-black room.

She’d tried, over and over again, to make some sense of it, but to no avail. It just didn’t make any sense. It’s not like people _lived_ in the middle of the ocean, only a few miles from shore.

“Maybe they live on a boat,” Soren offered, unhelpfully. “They just really don’t like other people, so they come to shore to fish and steal stuff in the middle of the night.”

Claudia shot him a flat look. “Everything you just said was so, so wrong. For one thing, it wouldn’t be my soulmate stealing stuff. They’re like, sixteen. And they would need to go to school, since they’re sixteen. Which you should know, considering you were there when my mark lit up.”

Being born with a flat, grey soulmark wasn’t entirely uncommon- it meant that your soulmate hadn’t been born yet. Claudia was born with one, and it didn’t start glowing until a little over a month after her first birthday. According to Soren, who was there when it happened, that was the brightest it had ever glowed, the light produced from the small mark rivaling the sun. They had been out at sea at the time, their mother teaching Soren how to surf in open water

“They could be homeschooled,” Soren pointed out, frowning and crossing his arms. “And don’t yell at me. I’m just trying to help.”

“Well you’re not,” she grumbled, falling back on her bed as Soren left her room with an exasperated noise.

Claudia held her arm out in front of her face, glaring at the scale stamped on the inside of her wrist. Of course she, out of everyone on the planet, would be the one stuck with a broken soulmark.

 

* * *

 

Rayla was swimming circles around Runaan, idly watching her timer tick down as he explained what kind of fish they were looking for.

“Rayla!” he snapped.

“Sorry, sorry!” she said, pushing off the rock wall to float back with the rest of the hunting party. “I’m just excited! I’ve never been onto the shore before!”

“And you still might not,” he chided, before turning back to the small crowd of gathered mermaids. Rayla sighed, glancing back at the inside of her wrist.

_0y 0m 0w 0d 5h 29m 32s_

_0y 0m 0w 0d 5h 29m 31s_

_0y 0m 0w 0d 5h 29m 30s_

Five and a half hours. Rayla could feel her heartbeat pick up, nervousness and excitement tumbling in her stomach as she watched the numbers tick down.

In her pod, it was unusual for mermaids to have timers longer than a few weeks. There weren’t very many of them, and you met mostly everyone in your first few weeks of life. It was customary to bump tails with a newly born mermaid in order to set off the timer, stopping the numbers and turning one of your tail scales the color of your soulmate’s eyes and tail. It didn’t necessarily have to be contact by tail- any contact would work, but tails were generally the most polite, and considered to be a lucky gesture. Regardless, a newborn mermaid usually got through their whole pod in a few weeks, maybe a couple months if there was something preventing it. Most soulmates met within a few years of their birth, never too far apart in age.

Which left Rayla, who was born with a timer of _16y 1m 2w 4d 22h 42m 10s_ , with two options.

One would be that her soulmate was from a different pod. That was a pretty good alternative to being destined for someone you grew up with she thought, considering it would make dealings with that pod all the easier.

The other option- option-we-don’t-speak-of, option would-rather-not-have-a-soulmate, option literally-anything-else-im-begging-you- would be that her soulmate was human.

When she was very young, her mother told her a story of her sister, whose soul was bonded with a human that, upon meeting her, captured and killed her. The story, while one she had only heard once, had struck fear into her so deep that when she was thirteen she’d asked Runaan if he knew how to sever a soul bond.

_Her mentor cast a concerned glance down to her timer, which still read a few months shy of three years. “Why do you want to know?”_

_“I don’t want to be bonded to a human.” The response was immediate. “So, if I find out that I am, I can cut it right away. That way, I won’t be killed like Aunt Nyla.”_

_Runaan, whose face fell into a look that she wouldn’t be able to decipher as heartbreak until years later, simply shook his head. “If you are bonded to a human, I’ll tell you when you find out. Promise.”_

Rayla looked up from her timer, only to see the room cleared out except for her and Runaan. He gave her a gentle smile, leaning forward to press a gentle kiss to her forehead. “Don’t worry yourself, guppy. Everything will work itself out in the end.”

Rayla wished she could be so sure.

 

* * *

 

“Going surfing again?” Viren asked, watching his two children pull their surfboards from the closet, both wearing the wetsuits they only wore for open water adventures. It was one of the few things that entirely covered Claudia’s soulmark. She wasn’t really sure how to feel about that.

“Clauds has been feelin’ kinda stressed,” Soren said, passing some sunscreen to her. “You know how she gets about her soulmark.”

“Well _sorry_ if I’m the only one out of the three of us that doesn’t know where my soulmate _is_!” she snapped, regretting the words as soon as the words left her mouth. “Dad, I’m-”

Viren smiled kindly at the two of them, waving it off. His mark was visible, the geometric pattern a stark black against the pale inside of his wrist. “It’s fine, Claudia. I understand that you’re frustrated.”

Black soulmarks had been a part of Claudia’s life since she was nine, her father’s blackening on a warm October evening- the day her mother died in a boating wreck not too far from here. When your soulmark blackens, according to him, there’s a brief moment when you can feel the pain your soulmate is in, then nothing. Your connection is severed.

Claudia’s worst fear was that hers would blacken before she got the chance to ever meet her soulmate. With the way things have been going so far, Claudia wonders if that might be the case.

“Still, it was insensitive. I’m sorry.”

“I know,” her father said, patting her gently on the shoulder. “I don’t blame you, Claudia. Take some time to clear your head, and stay safe.”

She nodded, waving to Viren as she left the house, catching up with Soren. “I swear you’re the favorite. He was never that supportive when I was going through my soulmate struggles.”

“You met Marcos on the first day of middle school.”

“And? It was middle school.”

Claudia rolled her eyes, noticing something in her peripheral. “Speak of the devil and he may appear,” she mumbled, a teasing smile curling her mouth.

“Soren!” Marcos grinned dopily as he made his way over, greeting him with a kiss. “I was hoping to catch you. You mind if I tag along?”

Soren glanced at Claudia, worrying at his lip. She didn’t bother letting him stutter something out, still one of the worst liars she knows, even if it’s for a good reason. “I think I’m gonna head out on my own, actually. I kinda need to clear my head, you know? So you guys are free to do whatever you want. I know you like heading up to the beach a few miles north of here.”

Soren frowned, although he looked tempted by the offer. “You sure?”

“Yeah, totally. Get out of here.”

So Claudia watched them leave, her heart aching as she followed its pull to the ocean, putting the happy couple at her back as she paddled out, further than she’s ever gone out on her own. She paused for a moment, sitting up on her board to look back at the distant shore.

She missed the wave rising directly behind her.

 

* * *

 

Rayla was alone, finishing a longer, recreational swim when she saw the human surfer fall off her board and hit her head on loose rocks. Rayla was next to her in a split second, ignoring the familiar tugging that insistently pulled her there as she did. Her stomach filled with dread just before she made contact, finally recognizing that pull for what it was, eyes glancing at the timer on the wrist of her outstretched hand.

_0y 0m 0w 0d 0h 0m 4s_

Her hand closed around the wrist of the human girl, feeling the flash of heat that came with first contact. Rayla had just met her soulmate.

There was a brief moment, a split second where she considered letting go, letting the scale on her hip turn a dull black, letting her timer fade out of existence on her arm, letting go of the burden that came with having a human soulmate. Rayla could let her die here, and come back where nobody would ask any questions. They would know, and they would understand. It wouldn’t be the first time this had happened.

The thought was immediately beaten back by a wave of disgust, aimed at herself and whatever instilled that in her. Probably herself, too, actually.

She couldn’t let someone die in good conscience just because they were her soulmate. The thought of it made her sick to her stomach, bile rising in her throat as she dragged the girl up to the surface of the water.

Rayla knew there was a small cave sunk into the cliffs that made up the shore this far north. She just had to find it, leave her there, and go back to the pod. Runaan would hold up his end of the promise, and all of this would be erased.

That’s what she told herself as she pulled the girl and her surfboard along, into the cave and up on the small shelf that would serve to keep her above water so long as she didn’t roll off.

Rayla, moments from swimming away, caught a glimpse of her face and stopped in her fins.

She was beautiful. An odd thing to notice about someone who was unconscious and waterlogged from falling off a surfboard, but it was true. Long, inky hair splayed over the rock, contrasted against the tan skin of her face, hands, and feet, the only skin she could see. Taking a shuddering breath, Rayla let herself glance briefly at the scale at her hip.

It had turned a delicate, spring green, sticking out amongst the rest of her lavender scales. The color fit, Rayla having no trouble picturing her with warm, green eyes. She wondered what they would look like if she was laughing, or smiling, or what they would look like pinned to her.

 _Dangerous thinking_ , she thought, trying to forcibly clear her head of these thoughts. Interspecies relationships don’t work out, and that was that. No amount of fantasizing would change that.

Rayla returned to Xadia sobbing anyways.

 

* * *

 

Claudia woke up to Soren gently shaking her, eyes panicked and movements jerky in an effort to not rattle her.

“Claudia? Claudia, are you awake? Oh, thank god. Marcos, get those blankets and some dry clothes, she’s probably freezing!”

“Wait,” Claudia mumbled, movements sluggish. “Wait. Slow down. What happened?”

“We should be asking you that!” Soren raked his fingers through his hair anxiously, further ruffling already messy hair. “You say you're going to go surfing and suddenly we find you unconscious in a cave off of North Beach! How did this even happen?”

“I don’t…” Claudia frowned, trying to remember what happened. “I don’t remember. I got knocked off my board, then nothing. I probably hit my head on something- if I was close enough to float over here, then the water wouldn’t have been that deep.”

“But that wouldn’t explain how you got up to the ridge,” Soren muttered, the thought apparently not a big enough worry to take precedence over her health as Marcos came running back in with blankets and some too-big dry clothes. “We’ll turn around, just get that wetsuit off.”

Soren did have a point, Claudia mused as she peeled the wetsuit off of her. She would probably remember pulling herself up to the ledge, right? Maybe a concussion would stop you from remembering something like that?

She tugged the too-big shirt over her head, rubbing some of the cold out of her skin. “You guys are good to turn back around, I’m-” Claudia’s words froze in her throat, eyes stuck to the pattern on her skin. The pattern she’d become intimately familiar through the duration of her life.

“Oh my god.”

“Claudia? What’s- oh. Oh no.”

The pattern that no longer glowed, but was colored pale lavender.

 

* * *

 

Once she’d returned home, Runaan wasn’t hard to find. Mers cleared the way as she swam through the pod village, purple tear-trails staining her cheeks. They knew what today was. They knew what had happened.

She rushed into Runaan’s outstretched arms, her body shaking with sobs. “I met her,” she said, voice wavering and breaking on every syllable. “I saved her life. It would’ve been easier if I’d just let her die and I _know that_ but I couldn’t- I couldn't bring myself to-”

“It’s okay, Rayla,” he said softly, rubbing her shoulder. “It’s okay. Just cry.”

So she did. She cried until her voice was hoarse, feeling her heart break over and over because she _had_ a soulmate, she had someone meant for her, but that someone was human. And humans have never been kind to mermaids, and Rayla would die before she let someone use her against her pod. Would rather be unbonded for the rest of eternity than bonded to someone that could destroy everything she loved.

Knowing that didn’t make it hurt any less.

Once she had cried herself out, eyes sticky and tired to the bone, she pushed off of him and set her jaw. “You made a promise.”

“Rayla… you’re not in a good place right now,” he said gently. “Just wait a day or two, think it over. Don’t make a rash decision that you’re going to regret.”

“I won’t.” Her voice was harsh and unforgiving, her grief and heartbreak hardening into anger. She would not be the victim of another human soulmate. Heartbreak meant shit if she was saving everything else in the process.

 

* * *

 

On the surface, Claudia could do nothing but stare.

She had a soulmate. A soulmate that came in contact with her, that probably put her on that shelf then… left.

Why did they leave?

 

* * *

 

“Are you sure?” Runaan asked again, the ceremony fully prepared. Rayla glared at him, and he gave a tired sigh before nodding. “Brace yourself, then. This is going to hurt.”

 

* * *

 

Two screams of pain, mirrored on land and in water.

A soulbond was broken. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_six months later_

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rejection sucked, Claudia thought gloomily, sipping on an overly large mug of tea after another failed date.

She doesn’t even know why she bothered. The responses are always the same from everyone: _I’m so sorry, this was really fun, but I’m just waiting for my… you know._

That was another thing. Nobody, not even her _father_ of all people, was willing to say the s-word around her anymore. Soren even stopped bringing Marcos over. And she _liked_ Marcos! They still though that, even after six months, she was still fragile and hurting about the whole situation.

_Would they really be wrong, though?_

Enough of that. It’s not her fault that other people want to wait for their soulmates. It’s not her fault that her own rejected her.

Claudia drained her mug of tea in a large, throat-scorching gulp and walked out the door, pulling her coat around her as she walked, the mid-March winds cutting through her. She needed to clear her head.

That’s what it was, though, wasn’t it? Rejection? Only for them to die immediately after. Claudia looked down at her wrists as her boots sunk into the sand, her feet following the muscle memory carved into the marrow of her bones by a pull she could no longer feel.

One black scale, her blackened soulmark.

 _This is not what clearing your head means, Claudia_ , she scolded gently, turning her gaze out towards the horizon. Grey sky met sludgy ocean in a long, fuzzy line, the waves rolling under the dark sky, uniform and repetitive.

Except…

One lone shape interrupted the consistent shore, skin pale and hair paler against the bleached sand. Claudia could only see her shoulders, the rest of her body slipping under the waves, nearly tugging her under. But she seemed to be fighting back, thrashing in the waves.

Abandoning her self-depreciation, Claudia jogged over, hand already extended. “Do you need help?” she shouted, her voice nearly lost in the wind.

The girl turned at the noise, going rigid the moment she laid eyes on Claudia. It only took a split second for whatever she was fighting to yank her underneath the waves, and Claudia lunged in the same breath, wrapping her hands around the girl’s bicep and _pulling_. The muscles in her arms were screaming so loudly, so painfully that she didn’t notice the painful throb behind her ribcage that pushed once she made skin contact, instead focusing on getting her away from whatever was in the water. She seemed to agree, after the initial shock, wiggling her lower body until the pull from the other side vanished, the two of them collapsing onto the sand.

“Are you alright?” Claudia asked frantically, looking over her for injuries.

She expected the blood. Not so much the tail.

 

* * *

 

These last few months have been both incredibly difficult and incredibly easy. Easy, because aside from the black scale on her right hip, everything was exactly the same. She hunted, she spent her evenings with Runaan and Tinker, she went to sleep without looking at her timer. Difficult, because everything was exactly the same. For sixteen years she had hoped that once she found her soulmate something would change, that something would shift dramatically and make everything that much better.

Instead, she got a purposely severed soul bond and a human girl that was far kinder than she had expected her to be.

“Just, stay there, okay? I’m going to get a med kit. I can do a temporary patch job on your tail. It won’t be pretty, but it’ll probably get you back home. I’ll be right back!”

Rayla wasn't entirely sure who she was trying to calm down, but whatever she was doing wasn't working, since the whole situation was a little overwhelming. And by a little, she was bleeding out from a freak shark attack under a picnic bench while her former soulmate, the same soulmate who she severed herself from six months ago, went to either save her life or get her shipped to some science lab or something.

When her ex-soulmate came back with bandages and painkillers rather than a team of scientists, and a relieved smile across her face as she knelt next to her tail, Rayla let herself regret what she did, just for the moment. Occasionally, Rayla would find herself wondering what would have happened if she never severed their bond, but it was a thought easily banished by the thought of her human soulmate trying to kill her or hurt her village. But now…

_If this is how she treated a random, injured mermaid, how would she have treated her soulmate?_

It wasn't worth thinking about. What's done is done, and all of this could still be an elaborate set-up, intended to trap her or slowly leech information from her.

“Thank you,” Rayla said hoarsely, pushing her thoughts to the side. Regardless, this girl- her _soulmate_ \- still saved her life. She flexing her tail as she pushed herself towards the water. It hurt, and the bandages wouldn't hold for very long, but it would stop her from bleeding out while she made her way back to the pod village for better treatment. “Really, I never would have expected from a human. Thank you for saving my life.”

A puzzled look crossed her ex-soulmate' s face, followed by reproach and almost-hurt.

“Have you… had bad experience with humans?” She turned to meet her gaze, eyes widening a fraction as she looked between both of Rayla's eyes. There was familiarity there, something that she must've recognized.

“Family member,” Rayla answered, pursing her lips slightly before looking out at the horizon. Sunset. Runaan would be expecting her soon. She pulled back only slightly, her fingers brushing the water. “I should- I should go. My mentor will be worried about me.”

“Wait!” she called, desperately. “Wait, please. Will I see you again?”

Rayla paused, seeing the raw fear in her eyes, just for a moment. Saying yes would be a mistake. Getting her alone, in a pre-arranged place, were sure signs of a trap. But she was a hunter first and foremost, and when it came to her instincts or her logic, she went with her instincts every time. Right now, while logic screamed at her to swim far, far away, her instincts said _this is someone we can trust. This is someone we know._

Her instincts, even when driven by a broken bond, are rarely wrong

“There are some caves by the beach just North of here. Meet me in the closest one to the sea at around midday tomorrow.”

Her ex-soulmate smiled, a nervous but glowing thing that lit up her features, any trace of the panic from earlier gone. “See you there.”

 

* * *

 

 _This was a mistake_ , Claudia thought, sitting cross-legged in the cold, damp cave, waves splashing against the shelf she was sitting on and soaking into the fabric of her jeans. Why did she agree to come here? It’s _March_. She’d been sitting in this stupid cave for an hour thinking that this mermaid would know anything about her soulmate when she was probably back in her watery mermaid bed laughing about the human she-

“Sorry I’m late.”

Claudia, too caught up in her own, bitter thoughts, startled so badly she almost fell into the water, whipping around so fast she strained her neck.

The mermaid was floating in the shallow pool of water, looking up at her expectantly, her lips curled up at the edges just slightly, the only indication that she’d noticed Claudia’s blunder. It dawned on her, the longer she just _stared_ at the mermaid, that this was the first time she really got the chance to look at her, no cloud of panic or wonder to blur her vision.

She was beautiful. Long ears swept into a webbed point and fangs that peeked out over her bottom lip were the only things that really set her apart from a human, looking at the shoulders up, but they only seemed to add to whatever it was about her that seemed to pull Claudia in. Her hair, which seemed to be a platinum blonde the day before, was truly white, the ends of it barely passing her collarbone and falling into the water, giving her an ethereal glow as she looked up at her, backed by the sunlight reflecting off the water. And her mouth-

Was moving. Rambling, actually, and Claudia found that far too endearing.

“Are you alright? I know humans don’t normally have fangs, but mine really aren’t that big, and one of ‘em is chipped, too, so it’s even less sharp than it should be.”

Claudia laughed a little, feeling a little warmer already. “It’s not the teeth, promise. You just… look different in the daylight.”

“Oh,” she said, taken aback. “Thanks?”

“I do what I can,” Claudia joked, winking. “How’s your tail feeling?”

“Better,” the mermaid said, the very tips of her webbed ears darkening half a shade. “Thank you again. I don’t think I would have made it without bleeding out before I got home.”

“Of course,” she said, smile softening for a split second, before it dropped and split into a half-grin. She gave her a sidelong glance, wiggling her eyebrows comically. “So, not bad for a first contact with a human, huh?”

The mermaid laughed, really laughed, a big, bright noise that filled the cave. Claudia felt something heavy lift off her chest, a smile stretching her face wide for the first time in months. “Better,” she murmured, quirking an eyebrow when the mermaid’s face fell into a look of confusion, before smiling shyly and shaking her head.

“You’ve certainly given me a… unique first meeting, that’s for sure,” she teased back, folding her arms and propping them on the ledge next to Claudia. “I can tell the tales of…”

“Claudia.”

“Claudia, the only good human on this side of the Pacific,” she finished, her smile showing off her fangs in full glory. “I’m Rayla, by the way.”

“Suits you,” Claudia said, dropping her head on her hand. “I assume I have to keep my stories of Rayla the great shark-fighting mermaid to myself?”

“I… yeah. I’m sorry, Claudia, I just- I don’t want to put the village at risk. They’re my family, you know?”

“Of course.” She smiled sympathetically, looking down at Rayla sympathetically. “I get it. Humans aren’t exactly well-known for our kindness towards other species. Or each other, honestly.”

“Thanks,” Rayla said, slumping a little against the rock in relief. “I was kind of dreading this conversation, honestly. This turned out so much better than I expected.”

“What were you expecting?” Claudia didn’t think she did anything really spectacular, honestly, just agreed to keep Rayla a secret from the rest of the human world.

It was a little more daunting to think of it like that.

“I’d half convinced myself you were luring me into a trap on the way here, if that tells you anything about what I was expecting. That’s the real reason I was late.”

“Well,” Claudia said, leaning back on her hands and letting her head drop onto her shoulder. “For both of our sakes, I’m glad I didn’t.” Rayla smiled.

They talked well into the afternoon, conversation flowing more naturally than Claudia could hold with her own family some days. It touched on almost anything and everything, from what Claudia was doing after graduating high school early, to Rayla’s life growing up in the pod village collective. It wasn’t until after, when they had separated with smiles and a promise to meet at the same time again the next day, that Claudia realized soulmates hadn’t crossed her mind once.

 

* * *

 

The better Rayla got to know Claudia, the harder it was to consolidate her with the nameless, half-drowned soulmate she was so convinced would turn her in, tell the world about the existence of mermaids. Claudia was silly and goofy but wickedly good at biology like her father, who loved art but couldn’t sit through a movie for the life of her, and who has never pushed too hard at the things she didn’t want to talk about. She’s wonderful, in all the ways that Rayla never knew a human could be.

“Yeah, you’re past the point of blaming this on any remaining soul bond,” Tinker said flatly, not bothering to look up from his current project as Rayla rambled about Claudia.

“I see why you and Runaan are soulmates,” Rayla grumbled, pouting. “You’re both mean.”

Tinker sighed, turning to look at Rayla. “It’s not a crime to like a human, you know. Especially since you speak of her so highly.  Just because many of us had bad experiences means it’s necessarily a universal experience. Humans are as varied as we are.”

“But I _don’t_ like her!” Rayla groaned, frustrated. “There’s nothing between us! The bond is gone, there’s no way for me to like her.”

“Oh, Rayla,” Tinker said kindly, brushing their tail fins as a show of support and affection. “You don’t need a soul bond to fall in love. And you might not be there yet, but the way you talk about this girl is different from the way you’ve talked about anyone else before.”

“But…” Rayla started, gnawing at her bottom lip. “I thought the rules were different after you break a bond. I thought I wasn’t… allowed to.”

Tinker just shook his head, sitting back at his workbench. “There’s a reason you two were soulmates. You are her best possible match, and she’s yours; not because of the bond, but because who you two are as people. The universe intended for you two to fall in love, you just ignored the marked path, wandered through the forest for over a month, then made your way to the same finish line.”

_There’s a reason you two were soulmates._

It echoes in her mind on the way to the cave, moving on autopilot from so many weeks going there. She didn’t _actually_ like Claudia, right?. It was infatuation at worst, still subconsciously obsessed with the soulmate aspect of their relationship. Which, naturally, Claudia still didn’t know about.

In Rayla’s defense, she had intended to. Multiple times. But there was always something in the way, something that made it too hard on one or both of them to tell her something that would inevitably be emotionally heavy. Rayla wasn’t going to dump the whole “oh by the way I’m your soulmate” thing on her when she’s had a bad day, or when Rayla is physically sick at the thought of telling her so far down the line.

She reached the cave not long after, pushing herself up to sit on the ledge as she waited for Claudia. “Rough day?” she asked when she came in, pulling her shoes off and dipping her feet in the cold spring water.

“Nah, just thinking,” Rayla said, pursing her lips. “Do soulmates have a lot of cultural significance on land?”

“Soulmates?” Claudia asked, furrowing her eyebrows. “I mean, I guess it depends on what you say is cultural significance. Most people do end up with their soulmate in the end, but it’s not uncommon for people to fool around before they meet them. And people whose soulmates die still can be in a relationship.” Claudia had glanced down at a small black mark on her wrist as she spoke, rubbing her thumb over it, her eyes clouded over with hurt. Her soulmark? “Why? Do they mean a lot for mermaids?”

“Kind of?” Rayla said, running her tongue over one of her fangs. “It’s just… most people meet their soulmate really young, since there’s not a lot of us. You’re expected to be with them, and usually it works out, but…”

This was the perfect opportunity to tell her. She could try and soften the blow, try and apologize first then explain. Then they’d have no more secrets between them. But Rayla looked at her, hand still over her soulmark and her eyes holding something raw and hurting as they talked. She did that. She put that hurt in her eyes whenever she looked at her soulmark. What if she started looking at her the same way?

“I’d met my soulmate when we were a little older.” The words felt like acid coming off her tongue, jaw flexing to stop herself from spilling everything, even if what she was saying wasn’t technically a lie. “She wasn’t born in my village. We met when we were both older, when she was passing by and I was out hunting. We were too different, you know? We didn’t really click at first, and so we went our separate ways. I was hurting, and I… I severed our bond.”

Claudia sat straight up, inhaling sharply. “You… you _killed_ her?”

“What? No!” Rayla balked, leaning out of her space a little, a little hurt. “Oceans, no. Do you really think I would do that?”

Claudia shoulders came up to her ears defensively, hands coming out in front of her. “I don’t know any _other_ way to break a soulbond!”

“Well- you- wait, you don’t?” Rayla frowned, shifting so she was facing her more. “So human soulbonds only break when one of them dies?”

“It’s not like they would break any other way,” Claudia pointed out. “We don’t have magic like you guys do.”

They fell into a tense silence as Rayla thought it over, trying to glimpse Claudia’s soulmark out of the corner of her eye. If a broken soulbond meant that the other was dead, then when _their_ bond broke…

 _Oh_.

“Do you regret it?” Claudia asked, unaware she was interrupting Rayla as she stewed in her own guilt. “Severing your bond, I mean.”

“I didn’t at the time,” Rayla admitted, voice thick with emotion. “But the farther I get from our initial meeting, the more I’m starting to.”

Claudia nodded, looking down at the pool of water. “Tell her, if you ever get the chance. She might be hurt, at the time, but if you guys really are soulmates, then everything will work out in the end.”

“What if I screw everything up?” Rayla hates how small her voice sounds, how fragile and vulnerable. “What if she hates me?”

“She won’t,” Claudia said, giving Rayla a small, sad smile. “I wouldn’t, in that situation.”

_Tell her tell her tell her tell her tell her tell her tell her tell her tell her tell her tell-_

“Thanks, Claudia.”

She doesn’t.

 

* * *

 

It’s been a year since her soulbond broke, and Claudia woke up with a weight on her chest, flattening her lungs so she couldn’t breathe. She could hear Soren downstairs, laughing and joking around with Marcos, who he finally brought back home during summer break.

She got dressed slowly, wiggling into her wetsuit and grabbing her board as she left her house, forgoing food and conversation to go for a quick swim before meeting with Rayla.

They mentioned soulmates once after that day, when Rayla talked about her aunt that was killed by the human she was bonded to, and how that had become a cautionary tale for mermaids bonded to humans. It solidified what Claudia had suspected when she heard that mermaids could end bonds without killing one of the parties; her soulmate was a mermaid, and they severed their bond because she was human.

That hurt to realize, although she wasn’t entirely unsympathetic. But it would have hurt so much more if she didn’t know Rayla.

Claudia wasn’t naive, to her feelings or to Rayla’s. They’d been meeting for nearly six months, usually talking about their days and their lives, and just sitting and enjoying each other’s presence on the bad days. It wasn’t entirely unreasonable to believe that they, both of whom were missing a soulbond, would begin to develop feelings for one another.

Claudia also knew that those feelings would, ultimately, lead both of them to more heartache. Rayla still had a soulmate that could probably return her feelings, swimming around out there. And when Claudia left for college, Rayla would probably go and find her, and fall in love the way she deserves to.

Claudia was fine with that. Claudia _had_ to be fine with that.

Just not today. Because as much as Rayla eased the hurt on a normal day, today wasn’t a normal day, and Claudia hurt everywhere.

She surfed until her body ached as much as her heart, and then went straight to the cave, not bothering to stop at home. Rayla wasn’t there yet, and Claudia, ever the masochist, rolled back the wetsuit at her wrist, enough to expose the blackened soulmark.

She missed it. Missed the pull to the ocean, missed the glow of a soulmate that hasn’t been found yet. It gave a phantom throb, the scale-shaped mark blurring as tears filled her vision. She didn’t even know what she wanted from it. Maybe a chance to ask why, even if she already knew the answer. Ask if they regretted it.

Claudia pulled her surfboard onto the ledge, laying back on it as she stared at the ceiling of the cave, her eyes stiff and puffy from her tears. She let them fall shut, hand wrapped around her wrist to cover the mark.

She hadn’t realized she fell asleep until she woke up, the light in the cave only a little different than from when she entered, and Rayla sitting by her feet, turned away from Claudia, muttering to herself. Her tail was splashing back and forth in the water, the way it usually did when she was anxious or afraid.

“Just… just say it. You can’t keep this a secret for much longer. ‘Claudia, I’m sorry, I didn’t tell you the whole truth about my soulmate when we talked about it.’ No, that sounds stupid, she probably doesn’t even remember that conversation. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, but you… you’re my…’ no. Maybe I should talk about seeing her fall off her board and bringing her here, let her figure it out before I say it? Would that be better or worse than just telling her outright that I was her soulmate?”

Claudia couldn’t have stopped the words that fell from her mouth if she wanted to, every syllable drenched with spite. “Definitely worse. Almost as bad as keeping it from her for six months.”

Rayla had gone very, very still, her tail freezing in the water and the tips of her fingers whitening on the edge of the stone shelf.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Claudia asked, voice crumbling as tears started to choke her. “This, of all things! I _told_ you that I wouldn’t be upset about it, Rayla, but you lied to me! You made it seem like your soulmate was a mermaid, too! Like you actually _talked_ to her before you cut the bond! Why wouldn’t you…” Claudia was trying to avoid outright crying, her whole body shaking like a leaf. “Did you get some kind of kick out of me not knowing? Of me thinking my soulmate abandoned me after saving my life?”

“Claudia, please, I didn’t- I couldn’t lose-”

She couldn’t take it. Rayla was crying too, voice strained with the purple ink that spilled from her eyes, and something about that made Claudia so, so angry. “Don’t,” she said, grabbing her board harshly. “Don’t try and make excuses. I don’t want to hear it. You have no reason to be upset about this.”

“No reason!” Rayla said angrily, whipping around to face her. “You think it was _easy_ to break the bond? Then to hide it afterwards so I wouldn’t lose you?”

Claudia’s face went blank, turning away from Rayla and towards the landlocked exit of the cave. “If you didn’t want to lose me, you should have _told me_.”

Rayla called out after her.

Claudia didn’t listen.

 

* * *

 

Rayla didn’t know how long she stayed in that cave after Claudia left, watching colors shift over the water as she wallowed in self-loathing, but it was long enough for her to see the stars when she left it, reflecting off the ocean water. She usually loved nights like this, making her feel like she was swimming through the stars, but today she just felt empty.

She had to fix this.

But _how_? Claudia had every reason to be upset with her, every reason to hate her. This wasn’t something she could just say sorry for and it would magically go away overnight.

Claudia needed space, and Rayla knew that. So that night, she went home without a word to anybody, and fell asleep with tears in her eyes.

The next day, she went back to the cave.

And it was like she was thrown back a year, watching a surfer get knocked off her board again, falling towards the rocks with a splash loud enough to shake her to her core.

This time, there was no hesitation, no glance at the timer that had been stuck at zero for a year. Just Rayla, sprinting after the girl she loved under the water, pulling her from the murky depths of the sea once again.

Claudia’s prone body, so effortlessly light in the water where her hair floated around her head and make her look like she was simply asleep, weighed Rayla down in the cave, so much heavier than she remembered as she lifted Claudia onto the ledge, hauling herself up as well to pull her head into her lap. Claudia’s face was slick, skin that was usually warm and soft and rosy was pale and cold to the touch from the water, hair stringy against the stone. She looked _dead_.

The thought alone sent Rayla into a panic, searching against her neck for a pulse, fear replacing the blood in her veins. “Please, no,” she murmured. “Not now. Not when I still have so much to say.”

 _There_.

A beat, jumping through her skin and to Rayla’s fingers. Then another. And another. A steady beat, if a little slow, easing some of the tension from her shoulders with every passing moment. She was alive. Claudia was alive.

Rayla bit out a relieved sob, looking down at her. Not dead. She cupped her face in her hands, gently running a thumb over her cheekbone as she brushed the water off her face.

For a split second, she considered leaving again, giving Claudia the space she needed. But… even if Claudia wouldn’t appreciate it when she came to, Rayla couldn’t abandon her. Not again

Never again.

 

* * *

 

When Claudia came to, the first thing she noticed was the warmth. The second was the pair of pale lavender eyes peering down at her. Memories came back to her quickly, her mouth falling open as she realized what must’ve happened.

“You stayed?” she asked, and her voice was too fragile, too vulnerable for the situation she was in.

“Of course,” Rayla murmured, looking at her with molten eyes, soft and warm and _open_ , entirely open in a way Claudia realized she hadn’t seen before. “I know- I know I screwed up, and I’m sorry for that. I know you need space, and time, and I’m willing to wait as long as you need me to, but please, _please_ give me another chance. You have every right to be angry, but-”

“Rayla,” she said, voice gentle as she moved to rest her hand on the side of her face, almost melting when she seemed to lean into her touch unconsciously. “I’m not angry. I’m hurt, yes, and sad and a little betrayed, but,” she swallowed thickly, swiping a tear out of Rayla’s eye, feeling er bittersweet smile under her palm. “not angry. I don’t think I could be angry at you, not really. After yesterday, I thought I’d-”

_Thought I’d ruined everything._

_Thought I’d never see you again._

_Thought I’d lost you._

The thoughts must’ve been plain on her face, as Rayla shook her head, covering Claudia’s with her own. “I only saw you because I was going back to the cave to wait for you. I’m a little harder to get rid of, promise.”

And all Claudia could do was smile, a hysterical laugh bubbling out of her throat as she surged upwards, pressing their lips together messily, not quite fitting together because Claudia was laughing and Rayla was smiling like an idiot, and it barely qualified as a kiss but it was _perfect_ for them.

She was perfect for her.

There were still things they needed to talk about, still things they needed to work through, but everything was out in the open, now. And even if they didn’t have the bond they were born with, well-

Claudia prefered the one they built.

 

* * *

 

Two girls clung to each other, one from land and one from the water.

The first tether of a soulbond was recreated.


End file.
